Communication strategies
How to communicate in a foreign language:
problems, solutions, strategies
Linnéa Anglemark
[email protected]
The Language Workshop
In this presentation...
•  Communicating in a second language
•  Addressing communication problems
•  Communicative strategies
•  Questions to reflect on
What makes communication in
a second language difficult?
•  Problems with vocabulary
•  Problems with pronunciation
•  Feelings of embarrassment
•  Problems with understanding the speaker
Addressing the problems
•  Problems with vocabulary
–  active reading and listening
–  dictionaries
•  Problems with pronunciation
–  active listening
–  feedback
–  dictionaries
•  Feelings of embarrassment
–  practise in a good communicative environment
•  Problems with understanding the speaker
–  ask questions
–  try to paraphrase what they say
Other strategies for the speaker
•  Avoidance
•  Paraphrasing
•  Conscious transfer
(adapted from Tarone 1981)
Avoidance
•  Syntactic (grammar) or lexical (word) avoidance
–  example: saying “I bring it yesterday” because you are
not sure whether the past tense is brought or *brung
•  Phonological (sound) avoidance
–  example: using a different word that doesn’t mean quite
the same thing, because you don’t know how the most
appropriate word is pronounced
•  Topic avoidance
–  example: not answering a question you know the
answer to, because you are not sure of the words
(Brown 2000)
Paraphrasing
•  Synonyms or rephrasings
•  Approximation
–  example: “ship” instead of “sailboat”
•  Word coinage
–  example: “airball” instead of “balloon”
•  Circumlocution
–  example: “that thing you put money in” instead of “wallet”
•  All-purpose words
–  examples: “thingy”, “stuff”
(Adapted from Brown 2000)
Conscious transfer
•  Literal translation
–  example: “he put his legs on his back” instead of “he was in a
great hurry” (literal translation of a Swedish expression)
•  Language switch/code-switching
–  example: “I went to buy shoes but I found out that wala na
pala akong pera!” (Tagalog: I had no more money)
•  Appeal for assistance
–  example: “how would you say this?”
•  Writing or drawing
•  Mime
(Adapted from Brown 2000)
To reflect on
•  Which strategies do you think are better to use, and
which are worse? Why?
•  What is more important: to get the message across or
to speak correctly?
–  Are there contexts when correctness is more important?
•  Which strategies do you use? Which are used by other
people you talk to?
Thank you for listening!